Egads!

Look at what my diet has degraded into! Ashamed, a little. But it has been fun and liberating in some odd way. (that is chicken strips in the plastic sack right of the cereal, btw)

The Eve

My view this morning

Hello Faithful Readers! By now it might be obvious that while on break from school I have WAY more time to write my blog, but just in case you did not I thought it was worth pointing out.

What an early morning barker may look like.

I awoke today to the sound of a dog barking as I am dog sitting, prompting me to get up let them out and feed them. After a fitful yet restful night of sleep, probably due to the recent splurge of poor diet and reading the first 59 pages of "How I became a Famous Novelist" by Steve Hely, (btw, a pretty good book) I rose to do so.

Self explanatory picture of the book I am reading

It was an amazing view as everything was frosted in white frost and the was just beginning to reveal itself lazily on the horizon. Oh how I could relate.


After letting the dogs out, playing with them, and feeding them, I returned inside invigorated from the crisp morning air. I felt inspired so I turned on the television with high hopes some great seasonal show would be on. To my dismay and non surprise, GMA, Today and The Early Show all had on the usual fair of depressing news: air travel mishaps, missing person cases, etc. No all day festival of being grateful that I hoped for. So my choices were between Sesame Street and White Christmas; it was a close race but White Christmas won.

There happen to be a few extra ripe banana's in the house, so I am going to bake some banana bread using this recipe today. Seems to be a fine thing to do today, bake that is.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread with some holiday sprinkles

If you have not had a chance to try Beecher's side dishes, do so as soon as humanly possible. This one is filled with kale, copious amounts of the real thing. It was incredibly good and cheesy. Normally I do not like frozen dishes, well not as a grown up anyways. But this one caught my eye the other day and I was feeling lazy, so I bought it. What a treasure I found. It seriously reminded me of the kind of dish I would make if I were to make a really good brown rice cheesy kale casserole. Those people over there in that Beecher's test kitchen experimenting making this type of goodness, yeah, they have it rough.

Heat in the oven and BAM, good eats.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Cookie Attack!!!

The Aftermath

No seriously, I woke up Saturday under attack by the baking bug. Don't laugh, this isn't funny. I had no choice in the matter. So I baked a few batches of cookies.

Chocolate Chip

The first one I made was a standard chocolate chip, but the recipe I found and used called for a 1/2 cup butter and 2/3 cup sour cream. I did not include the unsweetened chocolate and I may have added a little extra vanilla. These are by far the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever made. Soft, moist, tender with a great chocolate chip to cookie ratio i.e. these cookies are packed with chocolate chips! (there's no such thing as too much chocolate)

In the fridge, M&M sugar cookies waiting for a baking.

The next batch I made was a sugar cookie that I added nutmeg and cinnamon to and added both dark and milk chocolate holiday M&m's.

Trail Mix Cookies

The third cookie I made I just followed the Chocolate chip base recipe and instead of adding chocolate chips I added a bag of trail mix and some cayenne and cinnamon (Next time I make these I am going to make my own trail mix to add instead of using a store bought bag). They turned out much hotter than I anticipated, but were still pretty dang good.



Also in each batch I also added a splash of Chaokah brand coconut milk and a dash of fermented coconut water. You know, just to make things interesting.

Happy Holidays.
Joshua